Name's Jason Thibeault. I'm an IT guy, skeptic, feminist, gamer and atheist, and love OSS, science of all stripes (especially space-related stuff), and debating on-line and off. I enjoy a good bit of whargarbl now and again, and will occasionally even seek it out. I am also apparently responsible for the death of common sense on the internet. My bad.

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EVENTS

Men! Inflatable decoy by Axe saves you from post-coital cuddling!

Spent a significant part of the last two days preparing and practicing my conversational French to take part in an interview by a French skeptical show (more details when it’s closer to airing). Most of my preparations were for naught, though, as the interviewer apparently intended from the get-go to interview me in English and overdub us. So. Yeah. I got to try out some French, and hope some of it makes the final cut, but when we went off script the interviewer suggested we switch to English to be sure we got my nuances correct. All in all, it was a blast. I suspect I misspoke at least two spots, and will happily correct them if they end up on the final show.

Meanwhile, I have so many blogospherics to catch up on. As soon as work is over tomorrow (err… today, I guess, but to me it’s never tomorrow til I’ve slept), and I’ve fulfilled all my pre-vacation promises and set my duties to coast for two weeks, I’ll have a lot more brainshare to spend on finding and delivering premium quality whargarbl.

Like this nonsense, for instance. They call it the Morning-After Pill…ow. You know, in case your fucktoy decides she wants to snuggle longer than your contractually-obligated dude-time. Sure beats telling your lady friend that you’re a jerk!

I understand these were actually being sold, like, for realzies, in Brazil. I don’t know about North America. Chances are these are not really available, and the whole ad was just a stupid sexist joke. At least Axe isn’t TRYING to lower the bar here, but it’d be nice if they just kept that bar level for a while. A level where it’s so low a toddler put into the PR role could stumble over it.

Axe is already a lost cause for gender essentialism, sexism, objectification and commodification of women, and ridiculous and toxic levels of chauvinism and hypermasculinity (with a liberal side helping of the misandry that goes with telling men that they’re nothing if they can’t attract a woman like wildlife to Snow White, never mind how reductionist that is to the women in question), but sometimes I just gotta shake my damned head. The whole “big concept” of this ad depends entirely on bitches bein’ too dumb to tell the difference between a human being and a plastic bag full of air with muscles painted on.

Comments

*eyeroll* Axe-so you can recognize douchebags by smell.
If there are “men” so revolted by physical intimacy (beyond the old in-out-in-out),they’d more likely buy a
female-bodied inflateable,thus saving themselves the hassle of human interaction.

Back when I had a girlfriend (many, many, many years ago), I loved post-coital snuggling as much as the actual sex act. Particularly on cold, snowy nights like tonight. All warm, sleepy, and naked under the covers…

When I was a teenager, I used to wear Axe or its UK equivalent, Lynx. I am a she. Sadly, my love of Lynx Java (a now long defunct variety) has been tainted by these utterly toxic, brainless adverts. Fie upon Axe/Lynx and all who sail in her.

I hate this spam torrent we’ve been fighting. If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t be struggling with people with ten approved comments still landing in moderation despite the current configuration saying you get released from mod after your first comment.

Sorry if you end up in mod status, folks. It’s pissing me off more than you, trust me.

This isn’t right, Jason. If someone doesn’t want to cuddle, they don’t want to cuddle. I guess a serious attitude about personal boundaries only applies to women? If a man was trying to make a woman cuddle, the woman wouldn’t be called an “asshole” for not wanting to. I love how you twist it into treating the woman as a fucktoy just because he’s not into cuddling afterwards. I don’t see the same complaint when women don’t want to. You’re the one being an asshole.

Some people, after an orgasm, really want to be left alone after it. I’ve had that feeling myself sometimes. I understand it. I think it’s connected to even wanting to put your clothes right back on after, not even wanting to be nude as a connection to it.

Oh wow, the “how dare you!” tactic? I’m not slimy to suggest that there is bias towards women in topics like this. Especially when it’s you. That tactic doesn’t really make me think otherwise. I would love a “No, I would have a problem with a woman who doesn’t want to cuddle too.”

Seen the bias, and I’m tired of it. Look at how sex specific you are – you call it “dude time” and everything, and many times when the topic comes up it’s always someone complaining about a guy doing it. Sort of like how when people say “slut” or “whore,” a flurry of female-only examples follow. I’ve had someone say “omg, how dare you suggest I am biased against women when I slut-shame!” too.

I also notice how you seemed to change it to “just say so,” as if that was your main reason for acting like the guy was an asshole – no, it was because he didn’t want to cuddle. But since you can’t bring yourself to say “No, if a woman doesn’t want to cuddle after sex, she’s an asshole too” you change it. You know good and well what this looks like – and you’re confirming it!

I changed nothing about this. He’s an asshole for thinking she’s a dumb animal you can trick by substituting a human being for an inflated plastic bag with muscles painted on. If either of them don’t want to cuddle, they don’t want to cuddle, and they shouldn’t be forced to do something they don’t want. And the way you do that, if you respect another person, is through treating them like a human being with self direction. You know, communication. If you’re only putting up with a set amount of cuddling after sex because of some vague social obligation, be honest about it.

YOU’RE the one reinterpreting what I’ve said to mean what you want me to mean, so you can make me look bad (somehow, through vague and unspecified “but what about the menz” allegations). I’m happy that you keep talking though — because the more you do, the more you paint yourself the villain worthy of the moderation status you just earned yourself.

Let’s be honest here, dude. ” Sure beats telling your lady friend that you’re a jerk!” That right there implies that someone is a jerk for not wanting to cuddle in the first place – not that they’re only a jerk for being “secretive” about not wanting to cuddle. So, yeah, unless you can say “Yes, women are jerks when they don’t provide cuddle time after sex too,” you look biased towards women here. I don’t have a reason to pull wild accusations out of my ass, nor think of them out of the blue. You think I want to go around seeing (or talking about) biased bullshit in posts? No. I wish it would all just stop. Going “well, hey, at least some people like you aren’t biased when it comes to sex on the earth” isn’t enough anymore. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of the bias against women in topics, the bias against men, bias towards women (which is belittling and still offensive to us anyway), bias towards men. Fuck the world.

Now you’re calling me names? Are you fucking serious? :/… I at least took you to be the type who doesn’t lunge at people with crap like that. Wonder where you get your lessons. What the hell about me is so slimy? You don’t even know me, and there’s nothing in these comments that’s “slimy” or “fuckerish.” Oh wow, I’m trying to do it on purpose to make you “look bad”? LOOK AT MY OTHER COMMENTS, JASON. When a blog post is something I approve of, I don’t respond with criticism. I am HONESTLY UPSET. I AM NOT FAKING IT. God, this is such a fucking obvious tactic. “You’re trying to make me look bad, slimy fucker!” Trying to shut me up. As if I expected people to randomly go back and read the comments from 2013 anyway. But, whatever, anyone that grazes over the conversation and misses my actual arguments to determine if they’re “slimy” themselves isn’t worth my frustration.

Anyway, uuum… now you’re going so hard as to act like this is about what’s obviously a skit? I’m going to do something you did here… and say that you’re friggin insulting my intelligence there and treating me like a dumb beast. I’m not stupid. You know that that’s an exaggerated skit. No one is painting muscles on a bag and trying to trick someone with it.

Now can we go back to the main topic of you implying that someone is a jerk for not wanting to cuddle in the first place? Instead of insulting me and attacking back with BS, you can try an actual rebuttal. This quote. ” Sure beats telling your lady friend that you’re a jerk!” Explain it. Explain how I’ve misinterpreted it. What is the correct interpretation?

Oh yay, right after you act like I’m just a bitch trying to destroy your rep (yeah.. people are going to back on the blog and read it for comments after it’s not been commented on since winter break… mhm. Very valid suspicion there. I buy that.)

You’re the one making yourself look bad. The only one of your readers that’s going to honestly read this is me. Well, I don’t know that, but it’s unlikely that many will. And instead of making an actual case with me, you go “NO UR JUST TRYING TO MAKE ME LOOK BAD. COURSE I DONT THINK THAT. HOW DARE YOU MAKE SUCH ACCUSATIONS.” It’s *my* thoughts we both have to worry about here. Okay, you can respond with “how arrogant of you to think I give a crap about your opinion,” but you clearly do.|

Oh.. and my comments stop showing off after you diss the crap out of me instead of addressing my latest wondering – the QUOTE I pointed out! Wait. Did I paste that after refreshing? Crap. Just a second.

No. I’m not going to say women are jerks for hating cuddles. That is not the parallel to admitting you’re only cuddling a set amount because of the unwritten social contract because you think, ‘aren’t women ridiculously overboard about cuddling anyway? and won’t they just leave me alone? Can I trick them somehow?’ Because all of THOSE thoughts are jerkish.

Because that’s what the “skit” says. That’s what you’re defending. Not “dudes suck if they don’t want to cuddle.”

If that’s how you interpreted it, perhaps it’s my fault. I think it takes a patent disregard for my words to interpret it thus, and I think you’d have to intentionally be trying to make me the bad guy to interpret it that way, but perhaps I really wasn’t clear.

But you don’t get to rage further in public until I’ve slept. That’s why you’re in moderation. So I don’t have this shit to clean up until the morning when I can do it as my own time allows.

Oh, okay, to be fair, it looks like you didn’t read my comment showing my degree of upset at things like this before trying to just say I’m just making you look bad (which would have been pretty jerkish of you). Guess I sbmitted that after. So I’m sorry for that part in my comment that implies you insisted on it, as if to say my upset is fake.

Oh, I see. Looks like the video *did* provide more context than simply reading the blog post… it really looked like one of those times where a man is called a jerk for not wanting to touch or cuddle after sex. I’m sorry. :/

Yes, sometimes that happens. Sometimes you cross one another in comments and rage runs away and feeds back. I accept your apology. I will, however, chastise you for not watching the video first. Because jesus fuck.

Pardon me if my trust that there won’t be a mountain of headdesks in the morning keeps me from removing you from moderation for the time being.

I’m to bed now. Good night.

Trackbacks

[…] We got in a fight because she hadn’t watched the video that my blog post was a comment on and jumped to ridiculous conclusions. I presumed sliminess, though only based on the assumption that she’d actually read AND […]